The Sleep of Jane Rizzoli
by eshkaliot
Summary: Jane Rizzoli can't sleep. Maura finds out why.
1. Chapter 1

Jane Rizzoli hasn't been able to sleep for days. It is taking a toll on her now, pacing the streets of Boston, waiting for the suspect they were targeting to show up, the light from the surrounding buildings stabbing her eyes until she finally gives in and puts her sunglasses on, but the effect remains: she is dizzy, lightheaded—she's not sure she could identify the suspect even if he jumped out in front of her. In desperation, she retreats to a shadowy corner, rests her back against the relatively cool limestone of its facade, and tilts her head back, gulping air. She tries to ignore the light, the heat, and the worried gaze of her best friend and coworker, Maura Isles.

Suddenly there is motion in the corner of her left eye—a car, careening down the empty street: driven, she is suddenly sure, by their suspect, and she feels a spasm of joy at the certainty that they had him now, that _it was over_, and then she concentrates on her job, putting aside her exhaustion, the toll the heat is taking on her, the dizziness that has been overtaking her increasingly frequently over the last week. She is Jane Rizzoli, and she is going to take this guy down.

The car stops abruptly several yards away from where Jane stands hidden in an alcove on the outside of the building, and the suspect—looking bedraggled—stumbles out of the driver's seat, steadying himself against the car._ He looks exhausted too_, is Jane's first, almost compassionate thought. Then she notices the line of blood coming out of the corner of his mouth, and the way he is pressing one of his hands to his abdomen: it too is covered in blood. He has been stabbed. She spends an instant debating whether or not to help him, and then—why the hell not—runs out of her hiding spot toward the place where he's parked at the curb.

"Jimmy," she calls out. "What are you doing here?" This is the last thing she remembers thinking before the world became very, very loud as gunfire explodes the air around her. Jane's instincts work just long enough to get her to the ground, and then, overwhelmed (uncharacteristically) by the noise and the surprise and the exhaustion, she passes out in a pile by the suspect's car.

When she wakes up all she can see is Maura's worried face; all she can hear was Maura's voice, issuing in a frenetic, worried, instructive stream: "Did anyone see if she was hit? Is she bleeding? We should put her feet up on something—is there anything-" and then Jane feels Maura grab her legs and place them on her own lap. "Loosen her belt," is the next thing out of Maura's mouth, and at that Jane sits bolt upright so fast she almost faints again.

"Oh no you don't," she snaps, after the pinwheeling colors have mostly faded from her eyes, and she is surprised to hear her voice reduced to a weak, scraping croak. Then she looks at Maura again, takes in the look of concern on Maura's face. "What happened?"

The medical examiner sighs, shifts, put her hands on Jane's ankles, which are still resting in Maura's lap. "You fainted, Jane," she says quietly.

"And...and the suspect? Jimmy?"

"He's dead. Stab wound. I'm going to go examine him next," she says, but she makes no move to go.

"I can't believe I fainted," Jane mumbles to herself, putting her hands over her face, and she's surprised that Maura can tell what she's trying to say but apparently she can because the next thing she knows Maura is leaning even closer to her—she can smell her perfume—and pulling Jane's hands off her face and talking to her, seriously and quietly:

"You seem exhausted. This case has taken a toll on you. Have you been sleeping?" Jane wants to protest, wants to pretend that no, she isn't exhausted to the point of fainting in the middle of a stakeout, for Christ's sake, but something in Maura's tone is persuasive and her head is pounding and instead of answering she closes her eyes. She feels, through the soles of her feet, that Maura has leaned back, hears her sigh, and blacks out again.

When she wakes up she is on Maura's couch, and for an instant, right before she begins to wonder why she is there and how she got there, she feels a huge wave of relief wash over her, a sense that, with Maura nearby, she will be safe. There is nobody in the room. The crack of sky she can see through the window opposite her is dark; it must be night. Her head is still pounding. She is considering the merits of going back to sleep—the first uninterrupted sleep she has had in what seems like forever—when Maura walks into the room and notices that Jane has woken up.

"Jane," she says without prelude. "We need to talk about what's going on with you."

"What," Jane quips weakly, "not even a hello?" Maura ignores her, sits down on the sofa at Jane's feet, and lifts the other woman's legs into her lap. She strokes them absentmindedly, which embarrasses Jane for some reason. For a moment both women are silent, and Jane, still groggy, takes a moment to stare at Maura.

She is remarkably collected for someone in the middle of investigating a murder case, but Jane has come to realize that this is always true: Maura Isles always looks like she's in control, some distant, otherworldly paragon of order. She's changed out of the flawlessly elegant navy blue suit she wore to the stakeout—the _stakeout_—into what looks like pajamas, which makes Jane wonder again just how long she's been asleep. Maura's hair is pulled back from her face, which, Jane is just now realizing, looks very worried. She realizes that if she were in Maura's situation, if one of her colleagues—let alone her closest friend—had passed out on the job, she would be very worried too. Then Maura starts to talk.

"You're clearly exhausted, Jane. I'm worried about what this case has taken out of you.

"We've taken the body into custody. While you were...sleeping, I did a preliminary examination, and, combined with evidence taken from the scene, it seems likely that the murderer was an amateur, probably a relative of one of the people Jimmy murdered. This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that several of Mr. Ramirez's relatives were found at the scene of the crime," she clears her throat, "holding guns that had recently been fired." _So that explains the gunfire_, Jane thought to herself. "These people are in custody. Frost and Korsak are probably questioning them now. It's not clear at this point why they were unable to finish the job they started with the knife this afternoon, but I expect that will be cleared up relatively quickly.

"What I'm trying to say—and I know you don't want to hear this, Jane—is that everything will be just fine without you for a little while. You should relax, right now, try to work off some of that sleep debt." Maura is going her best to sound reassuring, and yet her smile is tremulous, not the wide, unguarded grin that Jane so loves to see. She smooths the blanket over Jane's leg for a moment, fidgets with the weave, and then stands up to go. Before leaving the room, however, she looks back at Jane again. "Go to sleep," she says. "You'll be fine." And Jane has no choice but to obey the injunction.

Instead of the charmed slumber she enjoyed before, however, Jane is plagued by nightmares. It's the return of the same ones that have been plaguing her for weeks, the ones that scared her awake for the past week. It is Maura who is in danger in these dreams, Maura who dies, the loss of Maura that coats her tongue with panic when she wakes up, the electric void in the pit of her stomach because Maura was, for a moment, dead. It takes her minutes to calm down, for her heart to stop racing, and in that time she realizes three things: the sun is shining through the blinds; she is still at Maura's house; and Maura is gone. She sits up, then gingerly raises herself up off of the couch, and walks towards the kitchen on unstable legs. She realizes, at this point, that she is wearing nothing but a tank top that she doesn't recognize as her own and her underwear. The clock on Maura's stove says 11:38, which Jane knows to be impossible, but she looks again and there it is: she has slept for hours. She gets herself a glass of water and drinks it while wondering idly where Maura is. Probably at work, she assumes. She turns away from the sink and notices a note on the counter. It reads:

"Jane-

I've gone to work. Make yourself at home. I'll come check on you later.

-Maura"

"Later?" Jane wonders aloud. When is later? When is now, even? Her headache is back. She supports herself against the counter, looking bleakly out over the room.

Several minutes later, there is the sound of a key in the lock and the door opens, revealing Maura Isles in all her glory. She looks flustered, juggling her keys and purse and a duffel bag, and, when she finally spots Jane, a little guilty. "Jane!" she exclaims. "You're awake!" She drops the duffel bag by the door and comes into the kitchen, puts her purse down on the counter. Without further ado begins talking at Jane. Jane is confused for a moment why Maura is talking so frantically, but then the reason becomes clear: Maura is nervous. And as Maura talks Jane realizes why Maura is nervous, and why she should be nervous, because what Maura is suggesting is that she, Jane, should take a week off from work, and that she, Maura, has not only decided where she should go, is not only insisting on coming along so she can "keep an eye on" Jane, but has already "informed" Jane's lieutenant that Jane will be taking this vacation. "I stopped by your apartment on the way home," she finished breathlessly, "and I packed a bag for you—we're only going to my family's vacation house in Provincetown, you won't need anything fancy—so we can leave now." She smiles.

"Maura," Jane gapes at her friend for a moment, taken aback by the stream of words coming out of her mouth, "don't you think...we should talk about this? Like maybe when I have some clothes on?" She gestures down at herself—although, honestly, any embarrassment she'd felt about being found almost-naked in Maura's kitchen had been subsumed by her amazement at Maura's astonishing proposal. Maura looks taken aback for maybe half a minute, looking down at Jane's bare legs as if only now noticing them before looking quizzically back up at Jane.

"There is no discussion, Jane," she says crisply. "You are clearly too exhausted to make decisions for yourself, as your little fainting spell yesterday shows." Jane is mad, sure, because where was she when this decision to take a week-long vacation was made? But she also realizes that arguing with Maura in her weakened state is probably futile. If Maura has already packed for her, what more can she do? Refuse to go? Sit on the floor like a child?

"Can I at least have some pants?"

"Sure, Jane, of course." Maura gestures to the duffel bag. "I put some sweatpants in that bag." Jane goes to the door and pulls on a pair of her own gray sweatpants.

"Whose shirt is this, by the way?" it occurs to her to ask. "And how did I get into it?"

Maura looks nervous again. "It's—it's mine, I thought it would be more comfortable than what you were wearing, and you weren't waking up, so I just put it on you. I hope...that's okay?" she cleared her throat. "You might want a shower, and maybe some lunch, and then we should be going."

"Wait—what? We're leaving right now?" Jane snaps. "Is this another one of those decisions you made for me? Did it not occur to you that I don't want to go on vacation? That having other people make decisions for me makes me nervous? Isn't this supposed to be relaxing?" Without waiting for Maura's reply she stomped off to the shower.

The hot water calms her a little bit, and she stands unmoving under it for minutes, trying to recollect her equanimity. First the return of the nightmare, then this...horrible surprise...she is feeling stressed out already. This vacation is a bad idea. But if Maura thought she should do it...She sighs to herself. She lets Maura take too much control over her life. It's ridiculous.

But on some level, she knows Maura's right. There's the edge of a headache returning, and she can feel that underlying exhaustion and tension. There's no way she's going to be productive this week, and she curses the fact. It makes her feel weak.

It is only when she gets out of the shower that she remembers that she doesn't have a towel. "Maura!" she shouts. "Where are your towels!" She heard a shuffle outside, Maura's footsteps approaching, the sound of a closet opening and closing, and then Maura is knocking lightly on the door.

"Jane?" she asks. "Can I come in?" and she does, without really waiting for an answer. It's obvious that she's just planning to hand the towel to Jane, but her gaze catches on the sight of the other woman standing tall, wet, and otherworldly in the middle of her bathroom. Jane notices a slight frown form between her eyebrows, and then Maura is turning away and Jane is wrapping herself in the towel, looking down and pushing her hair back and the door is shutting and Jane is alone. She doesn't know what this means. Nothing, probably. She dries herself with the towel, puts on the clothes she slept in.

Outside, Maura has prepared some kind of lunch for the two of them: it looks suspiciously like a salad. They don't make eye contact, and Jane can feel the moment in the bathroom hanging between them, but then she clears her throat, asks, "A salad? Really, Maura?"

"It's good for you!" Maura protests. "Just try it, Jane. This is organic Canadian arugula."

"You know what?" says Jane, walking past Maura towards the duffel bag by the door. "I'm not really hungry, Maura. I think I'll just put on some actual clothes." She grabs a t-shirt and some jeans from the bag, turns to go into the guest bedroom to change.

"Jane," Maura calls across the room. "I'm sorry about all of this. I hope—you'll be able to relax a little bit on this vacation."

Jane considers being mad, but she doesn't have any energy left. The last couple weeks have taken a toll on her. "Thank you for thinking of me, Maura," she says finally. And Maura looks surprised, grateful, relieved.

They leave at one in the afternoon, hoping to beat the rush hour traffic, which isn't too bad (maybe because it is Wednesday). Sometime around Hanover, in the flatlands of Southern Massachusetts, Jane drifts off to sleep, but she is woken up shortly after they cross the Sagamore Bridge by the sharp, stabbing sensation of hunger. "Maura," she whines, "I'm so hungry!" She is slouched low in her seat, still wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt. She feels sticky and tired and hungry, and a little bit like a small child. Maura glances over at her, smiles pityingly at the pathetic sight Jane knows she has become. She pulls a face to enhance the effect.

"Can you wait until we get a little further up-Cape?" Maura asks. "I know some good places to eat in Orleans." It is easier to capitulate. Jane watches the landscape flow by in all its hot, midsummer, tourist-town glory.

They eat lobster rolls in Orleans, stopping at a place off Route 6. It's not where Maura had wanted to go, but Jane is tired of waiting and her hunger is increasing, so it might be more accurate to say that Jane eats a lobster roll and Maura watches. Jane tries not to feel self-conscious, but she can feel the worry in Maura's gaze. Worry, and relief at seeing Jane wolf down the food.

It is approaching dusk as they arrive at Maura's vacation house, which is ridiculously well-situated: it is right up against Massachusetts Bay, overlooking the water. Jane is staring when Maura suggests, out of the blue: "Let's go for a swim!" Once again Jane wants to protest, wants to point out to Maura that they just arrived, that there will be plenty of time to swim later. She wants to point out that dusk is prime time for shark attacks. Instead, she acquiesces. They head inside to change into their swimming suits. Maura goes to the master bedroom, but not before she shows Jane her room: it is across the house from the master suite, Jane notices, and feels a stab of panic and being stranded alone in such a huge house, before she reflects that it's probably just courtesy to give your guests their own space.

She has one swimming suit, and Maura has managed to find it. It's old; she hasn't replaced it in probably a decade, but she hasn't had to. It's the most basic type imaginable, a swimsuit for the woman who doesn't want to think about swimsuits: black, one-piece. No fancy details. Relatively modest. It's warm, so she doesn't bother to put anything on over it before she strolls out to meet Maura.

She pokes around looking for a linen closet, eventually going down the hallway that leads to Maura's room before she finds one. She is rummaging around in it—doesn't Maura have any towels that are ragged enough to take to the beach?-when she hears a noise in the hallway and pulls her head out to look around.

What she sees nearly takes her breath away, for reasons she doesn't want to fathom. Maura is standing in the hallway peering at her. She is wearing a very revealing, decidedly not casual, emerald green bikini, and she is holding the back shut with one hand. When she speaks, it is with relief: "Jane, good, I thought I heard you out here. I underestimated the difficulty of fastening this bikini top—could you help me out?" And without further ado she turns and presents her back, her shoulder blades, her spine, her hips—Jane steps forward and, somewhat clumsily, puts her hand around Maura's, holding the strap of the bikini together until she can get it hooked.

There is a fumbling of fingers and somehow it's done, but Jane can't remember it happening. Maura turns around looking satisfied, a look that quickly perishes when she looks at Jane's swimming suit.

"Don't you have any other bathing suits?" She asks plaintively. "That one's so plain!"

"Maura, you packed my damn bag for me, you must know I don't have any other swimming suits," Jane retorts.

"Well, I guess...I suppose I was just hoping that maybe you had another hidden away somewhere..." Jane is flabbergasted again, but for a different reason; sometimes she just cannot tell what goes on in Maura's head. "We'll just have to buy you a better one tomorrow," Maura concludes, looking significantly happier. "Let's go!"

The sun was setting over the beach. It is almost high tide, and Jane is suddenly very nervous. "Maura, couldn't we postpone this a little? Like, say, until tomorrow, when it'll be low tide again and the sun will be out and the sharks won't be biting?"

"Don't be silly," Maura says. "There aren't any sharks in this region of the Cape. Come on, Jane. A swim will calm you down." And with that, she walks defiantly down the beach and into the water.

"No, it won't," Jane grumbles to herself. "It will just make me nervous and paranoid." She stands on the edge of where the sand begins, not too far from the water, and she watches, absentmindedly, as Maura is increasingly enveloped by the water until there is nothing left but her head showing, her hair hanging down in a braid, the commotion in the water by her shoulders where her arms are pumping, keeping her afloat. She sees Maura turn around in the water, call out to Jane: "Come on in! The water's great!"

Jane is tired and cold, suddenly, waves of goosebumps are spilling over her skin and she doesn't know why but there are tears forming in her eyes. She wraps her arms around herself and turns away from the sight of Maura in the water, trudges back up to the house, without even getting her swimming suit wet.


	2. Chapter 2

It takes Jane a long time to fall asleep that night, and when she does, she dreams. They are back at the beach again, and the anxiety she felt yesterday about Maura resurfaces, but in a more confusing form.

They stand together in front of the implacable ocean. It is high tide; there is very little beach left. She turns to her left and sees Maura in her braid and her bikini, squinting against the last rays of the dying sun. Without looking at her, Maura begins to walk forward, towards the ocean, leaving Jane behind. She barely hesitates when she reaches the point where the waves are breaking on the shore, wading forward until her legs are submerged. Jane watches her friend disappear: first Maura is up to her waist in the water, and then suddenly it is closing over her shoulders, and then it is over her head. There are still some ripples on the water where Maura's shoulders had been working to keep herself afloat, as if she will return at any moment, but after a moment even those dissipate.

The waves continue to curl softly, innocently into the sand, and Jane realizes that she is alone. Entirely alone.

Her first impulse, when she wakes up at 3 AM, is to go find Maura and make sure she's all right. If she's honest, her first impulse is always to go find Maura. During the last few weeks, she's been plagued by nightmares: the content changes every night, but their object is always the same. It is always Maura who is in danger, Maura who dies or is dying or is taken away from Jane, consumed in a fire or hunted by zombies or killed by sniper fire. And every night, when she wakes up at 3 AM, she comes to the realization that Maura is her best friend, that without her Jane is lost, that she needs to protect Maura but she doesn't know how.

Instead of going to find Maura, she lies in her bed, trying not to think, until the smell of coffee tells her that it's safe to get up. But the feeling of profound loneliness that the dream has inspired in her lingers even as Jane accepts a mug of coffee from Maura, as she grudgingly agrees to go shopping with Maura—at this point, she's more or less accepted that this vacation is for Maura, it's to make Maura feel better about Jane—as they drive into town. It intensifies as she stands in front of the mirror trying on the incredibly skimpy swimsuits Maura is passing in to her. She gives up and chooses one, finally, at about 1 PM, because she is getting hungry—Maura's stamina is, clearly, much greater than Jane had estimated.

"All right, then!" Maura calls through the door when Jane tells her she's done, she's chosen one. "Let me see!"

It is the most modest bikini Maura had passed over the door, which means that it pretty much covers forty percent of her ass and the danger of her nipples slipping out is relatively slim, and it's an unobtrusive dark purple that Maura calls "eggplant." Jane still feels like she's naked, and she pokes her head out to see if there's anyone else in the immediate vicinity before she opens the door to let Maura see.

"Ooh." Maura nods approvingly. Jane stands around uncomfortably, hands at her sides, keeping a sharp lookout for passersby. After a minute, though, she realizes that Maura is being too quiet. She looks inquisitively at Maura, who is currently staring at her midriff. Who is blushing, now, and turning her glance away, toward the vast pile of bikinis that Jane has rejected. Jane clears her throat. Maura says, suddenly, "it looks good. I'm glad. This took long enough," turns briskly away. "I'll meet you at the checkout."

The afternoon feels long. They eat sandwiches at one of the fifty shops lining Commercial Street. They go grocery shopping at a tiny market. Maura drags her to some art galleries for what seems like forever but which is really more like four hours. Jane has no idea where Maura finds this stuff. She also can't believe that Maura would be interested in this stuff—it's mostly representational painting, very sedate compared to the weird contemporary stuff Maura likes. Most of it is boring for Jane, endless marshes and sunsets over the sea. How many different sand dunes can there be on the Cape? These painters seem to have painted them all.

Towards the end, however, there is one picture that makes Jane stop. It's a picture of the ocean, smooth and blue and somehow ominous. It reminds her of the sea she'd dreamed of, the sea that seemed unbearably deep. The sea that kept Maura from her. She stands in front of it for minutes, until she realizes that Maura is leaving the gallery. She hurries to catch up, but when Maura asks her if there was anything there that interested her, she demurs. "This stuff is so boring, Maura," she whines. "I don't know how you can stand it."

Maura shoots her a sour look. "It's not boring. Much of it is by local artists—think how well they must come to know their surroundings, reinforcing impressions of beauty by painting them..." she sighs. "Sometimes I wish I could live on the Cape all year round. Always be surrounded by this natural beauty." She turns to look at Jane. "But it gets so empty and bare in the winter here. I could never live like that."

"You want to be useful," Jane nodded. "I get that."

Maura shakes her head slowly. "It's not just that. It's also...I get so lonely sometimes. I don't think...in a place like this, in the winter...I don't think I'd be able to go on." But then she smiles at Jane, and the chill that settled over the detective dissipates in the face of the heat of the day, the crush of people and colors and action that makes Commercial Street so exciting, Maura's sunny expression.

They drive back to Maura's house—it's about ten minutes from the place they were shopping, just a bit beyond the last public spaces. Maura busies herself making yet another needlessly complicated salad for dinner, until Jane notices what she's up to and insists on making hamburgers instead. When Maura hesitates, she takes her opening: "Aren't you supposed to be helping me relax? Cheeseburgers help me relax." Fortunately, Maura laughs and moves over. Jane thanks goodness that she slipped a package of hamburger into the shopping cart when they'd gone grocery shopping that afternoon.

They eat on the porch and it's gloriously domestic. Maura eats her salad and Jane eats both of their hamburgers, and she feels peaceful for the first time in a very long time, like this might be enough. And despite her reluctance to leave the case (the case!) behind, and her annoyance at Maura once again sticking her nose into other people's business, she has to admit she's relieved. Almost happy to be here.

After dinner, she calls Frost, a little worried that he'll be pissed that she hasn't called him in a whole day, but he's surprisingly sanguine. "Yeah, Jane, everything's good!" he says, a little loudly. "Everything's going...just...fine!" She listens more carefully, and she can hear the sounds of a raucous crowd in the background.

"Frost, are you...are you in a bar? In the middle of a case? What the hell?"

"No, no, Jane," and here Frost actually giggles a little bit, "we got the guy! It was definitely Jimmy who did it, and the vic's father confessed to stabbing him. It's all wrapped up. We're at the Dirty Robber celebrating right now." Jane feels a stab of jealousy.

"You did it without me! Great! I guess you really don't need me..." she realizes as she's saying it that she's being bitter, that of course Frost and Korsak should be celebrating, that if she was tired enough to faint in the middle of a stakeout she's tired enough to need a vacation.

"Jane, shut up. We need you. We need you rested," she can hear the affection in Frost's voice; he must be really drunk. "Take care of yourself, and take care of the doc." With that, he signs off, and Jane turns back to the kitchen, where Maura is making short work of the pan the hamburgers were cooked in. She stops for a moment, looking at Maura leaning over the sink. Her hair is tied back, her face looks relaxed. Even in an old sweatshirt and tank top, Jane realizes, she is beautiful. Then she shakes herself out of this trance she's in, enters the kitchen.

"Maura, come on, I can't let you do that when it was me who ate all the hamburgers," Jane protests, taking the pan from Maura's soapy, unprotesting hands. "You can wash the salad bowl, or something."

They don't have very many dishes to wash. At eight thirty they sit down in front of the TV, and Jane turns it to some local baseball game that's being broadcast on a local channel—Maura's vacation house doesn't have cable—but neither of them bothers to watch it. Instead, Maura turns to Jane. Jane has a bad feeling that she's about to get questioned about something, and her suspicions are confirmed when Maura begins by saying, "So, Jane...why aren't you sleeping?"

"Right now?" Jane jokes weakly. "The company is so good, obviously, plus this game is just enthralling..."

"You know what I meant." Maura is silent, waiting for a response. Jane shifts position, tucking her legs under her, trying to think how to avoid telling Maura that it's her, or the repeated dream of her death, that is scaring Jane awake.

"You know, it's just...stress. From my job. It's a high-stress job." Maura knows this. Maura also knows that it's been ten years, and Jane has never had this kind of reaction to the stress her job puts her under. On some level they both know that it's not about the job at all, it's something else that's gnawing at Jane. But Maura doesn't challenge her. Instead, she looks disappointed, like Jane's inability to confide in her is Maura's failing, not Jane's. They are silent for a while. Jane doesn't know what Maura is thinking, but she is thinking back, again, to last night's dream, to the relentless, perplexing aftertaste that it's left in her mouth: part panic, part loneliness, but part of it is hope. Hope for what? For Maura? She sighs, leans back, and looks over at Maura, who is brooding, her head propped on her fist. She smiles when she sees that Jane is looking at her, and all of a sudden Jane thinks back to what Maura said this afternoon about being lonely. Is she lonely right now? Jane clears her throat.

"Do you have any movies here?" And yes, of course Maura has movies. Maura has weird, classical, artistic movies, but the one they choose is a Spanish film, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! The plot features Antonio Banderas kidnapping a young woman in her own home and convincing her to love him. Jane is put off at first, but the music is lovely and finds herself sympathizing with the strange couple.

Maura laughs when the movie is over. "Probably not the most appropriate choice. I don't want you to think that I'm expecting you to develop Stockholm Syndrome just because I'm dragging you off here for your own good."

"Why...would that happen, and how did that movie even make you think of that?" Jane is taken aback.

Maura looks embarrassed. "Of course, it's not at all relevant. It's not like I'm kidnapping you and trying to make you love me...I just wondered what you thought."

Jane thinks for a moment. "I liked it, actually. It was weird, and I'm still not sure why I'm not freaked out by their...relationship, or whatever, but it was nice." Maura nods, looks relieved that Jane hasn't made an issue out of her awkward disclaimer.

Lying in bed that night, Jane thinks she might know why Maura likes it. Ricky, the main character, is so obviously, overwhelmingly, achingly lonely, but he doesn't dwell on it. He just goes out and finds love for himself. He's persistent, and, in a weird way, effective. If only it were that easy to make someone love you, Jane reflects. Then she closes her eyes, and, of course, she dreams.

She's back at the beach, standing uncomfortably in her bathing suit while Maura is walking away from her towards the ocean. Waves bite at the shore, are absorbed as if they were nothing. She can see Maura flinch as she enters the water, and she can tell it must be cold. It's later in the day than it was before; the sun has gone down and the sky is a bruised, indecisive color. There are no stars out yet. As before, Maura walks forward into the water until it covers her shoulders. Without turning around, without moving at all, really, she slips under the water, a wave covering her head, tucking her inside as if she were just one more grain of sand.

Yesterday, Jane turned away when Maura was in the water. Last night, she stood there helplessly as Maura went under and didn't come back up. Now she finds herself running towards the ocean, trying to find the spot where Maura went in. If she can only find Maura, drag her up to the surface...the ocean isn't very deep here, they aren't too far from shore. She's a pretty strong swimmer (so, for that matter, is Maura, but she doesn't think about that).

The first slap of the waves against her shins is shockingly cold, but she soon gets used to it. She is in the water now, and it is almost dark. She is splashing around, looking for Maura, up to her shoulders in the icy water. She decides to duck her head under the water, try and see where Maura is. She takes a deep breath and is submerged. Immediately the water feels deeper, which doesn't make sense; she can hardly touch the bottom she was standing on a moment ago.

Miraculously, her eyes are open and she can see, dimly, through the murky water. She looks to her left and there she is: Maura is floating dreamily, weightlessly, in the water. Her face is turned down like it was this evening, washing dishes. Jane thinks she might be sad. Is she lonely, down here, like she is up there? Jane reaches out a hand and grabs Maura's wrist, but instead Maura looks up, staring directly into her eyes. Jane tries to pull her up, towards the surface, where a few last glimmers of light still linger, but instead Maura grabs onto Jane's arms, pulls her closer. Jane is worried about suffocating, but then she realizes that her own mouth is open, she is somehow breathing the water, and does this mean that she's dead? Or that she could always breathe the water, and she just never tried?

She realizes that Maura is looking at her with an expression of unbearable longing on her face, and the only thing she can think to do to stop Maura from looking so sad and lost is to kiss her. In the dream, Maura moves closer to Jane then, running her hands up Jane's arms to place them on the back of her neck, pulling her in, and twines her legs around Jane. There is a long, low, resonant sound in the water around them, and Jane realizes that it is a whale that has swum closer to investigate, and at this point she really can't blame the whale, she feels so lost in this kiss, so drawn to Maura, it's almost magnetic. Then Maura's hands are moving again, it's like Jane has brought her to life: they work at the fastening on Jane's suit, pull it off, drift over her breasts and down the plane of her stomach. Her legs are moving against Jane's as well, they are tangling together, and then Maura's bikini top has come off and Jane realizes belatedly that she was the one who took it off, and then she stops thinking at all and just starts feeling the movement of Maura's limbs against hers in the water, which now seems like the perfect temperature, it's amazing she's never thought of this before, touching Maura in this way, because they fit together so perfectly, her hands and Maura's ass, her lips and Maura's lips, and there's a feeling that's growing stronger and stronger inside her when she wakes up.

She lies, panting from imagined exertions, amid tangled sheets, and for a minute there is nothing but loss, now that there is no longer any possibility of her and Maura and the water and the whale and that feeling of wholeness. And then she starts to come back to her senses and she starts to wonder where the hell that came from, and what it means, and how she's going to look Maura in the face ever again without thinking about kissing her.

And in fact, Friday is difficult. Once again, she comes downstairs when she smells coffee, accepts a cup from Maura, sits around planning the day. Tries not to think about kissing Maura. They decide to go to the Audubon in Wellfleet, which Maura says is really beautiful on days like this: it's almost cool, and the sky is gray. It's not until after she leaves to get dressed for the day that Jane realizes that her hands are clenched and sweaty, her stomach in knots. She turns on the shower just so she can stand under the water and wonder what is happening to her. She reasons to herself: Maura is her best friend. This is a fact. Best friends do not want to kiss each other like...like that. People have weird dreams all the time. She happens to remember a dream Frost told her about in which he had eaten a whole box of Lucky Charms. Frost doesn't even like Lucky Charms. Therefore, dreaming about kissing Maura does not mean that she really wants to kiss Maura.

She takes a deep breath, steps out of the shower, and prepares to spend the day not thinking about the way Maura had looked so eager, her face almost flushed, even in the cold water of the dream.

They drive down to the Audubon, and Maura is right: it's lovely today, and almost empty. They take a long, winding path through trees and grasses down to the beach. It's almost low tide, and there's a fog over the water, so everything is varying shades of silver. Birds fly by, in mystifying, fluid shapes. On the way out, they had talked; now they stand together for a couple minutes, staring at the serene picture before them. Jane wonders what Maura is thinking. If her intention was to find a restful activity for Jane, she's certainly succeeded. She can start to feel her anxiety abating.

They walk back on a different path; this one goes over a couple of small streams, which means they are crossing bridges every two minutes. On the third river, Maura suddenly stops and goes over to the railing excitedly. She leans over, peering into the water. Jane is mystified, until Maura calls her over, saying, "Look! It's a snapping turtle, and it's eating some kind of bird! I think it's a sparrow, but I'm not sure—I can't see it's wing markings-" she's going on like this, with Jane standing baffled by her elbow, when someone runs up from behind them and bumps into Jane, who bumps into Maura, who starts to go over the railing.

Jane catches Maura around the waist, pulls her back onto the bridge, but instead of letting her go she realizes that she's enjoying the feeling of her fingers encircling Maura's waist, that she can feel Maura's ribcage expanding and contracting, that Maura isn't saying anything, but is just standing there, looking at Jane. Jane looks back. She almost feels like Maura is trying to tell her something, but just as she's about to open her mouth and ask, Maura's eyes shift from her face to a point over her shoulder, and she turns her head and realizes that there is a kid there, just standing and staring. He turns and runs away when he sees Jane looking at him, and when she turns back Maura is also looking away. The next second, she is pulling herself out from between Jane's hands, brushing past Jane, continuing on the path they'd been following. "Damnit," Jane mutters to herself. For a minute there, she'd felt like she was getting somewhere, like Maura was going to tell her something that would explain this whole mess she's in, but now everything is just awkward, and she doesn't know how to fix it.

They ride back to the house in silence, and they spend the rest of the day on the beach. Maura has recovered some of her buoyancy, and she claims to feel like sunbathing, which doesn't make much sense to Jane, because it's cloudy. But she's just glad, at this point, that Maura is talking again, and so she puts on her new bikini and grabs one of the novels Maura has hanging around the house and walks down to the beach with Maura.

They spend the rest of the morning sitting on the beach. Jane tries to read the book she grabbed, but she spends fifteen minutes on the first page before she realizes that it's essentially an extremely misleading birding guide—not only does it have an introduction that's written in surprisingly engaging prose, it's apparently intended for identifying the birds of Sub-Saharan Africa. Jane tries to think of a good reason why Maura would have a book on this subject lying around her vacation house, but gives up when she realizes that there just is not any good reason to have such a thing lying around. She tries to make this point to Maura, but she is asleep. Or at least, Jane assumes she is asleep: she's wearing sunglasses, so it's impossible to tell, but she might just be ignoring her. Jane gives up and gets up to go for a walk. The tide is out, so she crosses the band of rock and debris that separates her from the ocean and walks along the sandbars.

She loses track of time. It's mesmerizing, watching the waves pound to her left, the water, in this light, almost as gray as the sky. By the time she realizes that she's gone a long way and should turn back, the tide has started to come back in. She walks the last half safely back on shore, watching the ocean inch its way back up the sand.

When she gets close to the place she started from, she can see a figure walking toward her. A little farther on, she realizes that it's Maura. A little closer, and she calls out, "Hi! What are you doing?" When she gets close enough to see Maura's face, she sees that she looks unsettled.

"I woke up and you were gone," Maura says, and laughs a little at herself.

"Well, I just went for a walk."

"It was a very long walk."

"Maura, is there something you want to tell me?" It's been on Jane's mind the whole time she was walking, the feeling that something was interrupted this morning at the Audubon, and this feeling only intensifies when Maura blanches and looks down at her feet.

"No...no, of course not." And Jane almost believes her.


	3. Chapter 3

Jane is frustrated. It's obvious that there's something going on with Maura, and she doesn't know what it is. For that matter, she's not totally sure what's going on with her. For some reason, she's more disturbed by the dream she had last night than she has been by the dreams that have been scaring her awake for the last couple weeks. But obviously, there is some part of her that doesn't mind them, the same part that held onto Maura too long on the bridge yesterday morning. She's straight, she knows she's straight. But every time she thinks back to that dream, her heart rate rises and she gets this dizzying feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Sitting on a beach chair next to Maura this afternoon has given her plenty of time to reflect on this. She's gone back and forth a hundred times between determination to figure out what's going on and losing herself in remembering that dream and then coming back to her senses and feeling increasingly lost, frustrated, and confused. At three o'clock, she breaks the cycle, gets up from her chair, and tells Maura she's going back to the house to have a shower.

She's standing in the shower, taking an inordinately long time shampooing her hair, when something loosens inside her and she's sent back to the dream for the hundredth time today. Maybe it's only the feeling of water on her skin bringing her back, but this time, instead of getting flustered and embarrassed, she's able to look at it objectively, look at herself objectively, and realize that she enjoyed it. That something in the experience, even if it was only a dream, filled some gap in her soul. She finds herself wishing she could go back to that place, could hold Maura, communicate to Maura how special she was to her, how much she loved her. And with that realization, the bottom falls out of Jane's stomach and she comes back to her senses: the shampoo has long since rinsed out of her hair, the water is running cold, and she is in love with Maura Isles.

She is almost sure Maura doesn't love her. There is just no way-Maura is so obviously…girly, so clearly straight, and besides, there is no way she'd be into Jane. She is so obnoxious to Maura, so rough and impatient next to the medical examiner's polished brilliance. She feels a pang of intense regret. She turns off the shower, and reaches for her towel.

The guest suite Maura has given her has a bathroom attached, and it still kind of surprises Jane to walk out of the bathroom right into her own room. She gets dressed in a t-shirt and stretchy black pants, and brushes her hair quickly. She sits down at the foot of her bed and looks into the mirror, almost sure that it won't be the same person who looks back at her. She feels as though everything has changed.

It hasn't. it's still her; she still has bags under her eyes, and she looks just as sad, just as worn, as she had been coming into the vacation. She turns away from the image and goes out into the hall. She is debated whether to go see if there is a game on the TV or go back down to the beach and see how Maura is doing when she hears the noise. It is coming from down the hall, in the direction of Maura's room, and it's just a slight sound, barely audible, but when Jane stops moving and listens more closely, she can tell that it's a whimper, and that it is definitely coming from Maura's room.

Jane panics, her mind racing through a dozen different scenarios, all of them bad, and heads for Maura's room, trying to be quiet. As she gets closer, she can tell that the sound she has been hearing is very muffled crying. And as she steps inside Maura's bedroom-the door has been left ajar-she sees that the sound is coming from Maura, who is lying curled up on her side on the bed, wearing a t-shirt over her bikini but not much else. She is sobbing very quietly; mostly, she is crying. At this moment, her hands are on her eyes, wiping tears away, but after a minute she moves them away and opens her eyes, and that's when she sees Jane.

"Jane," she murmurs, and her voice cracks with another sob. "Could…could you come here?"

Jane's first reaction is fear: she's afraid of what will happen when, armed with this new knowledge about herself, she puts herself in close proximity with this strange, crying, vulnerable version of Maura. So she's filled with fear, but also tenderness, because that's her best friend, and in the end the tenderness wins. She gets on the bed, and she crawls slowly towards Maura, until she is facing Maura, and then she puts her arm around Maura's shoulders and pulls her close, lets Maura rest her head on her arm, and Maura shudders a little, tense with crying, and then relaxes into Jane's arm.

At first it is uncomfortable, both physically and mentally. After a while, though, they shift so that Jane is more or less flat on her back, and Maura is curled up next to her, her head on Jane's shoulder. Jane's right arm is supporting Maura, and her left arm rests on Maura's arm, gently smoothing it, trying to calm her down. After a while, when Maura still hasn't stopped crying-if anything, the crying has gotten worse since Jane has arrived, and her t-shirt is already basically soaked with Maura's tears-Jane asks her what's wrong.

It takes Maura a couple tries to choke down her tears enough to answer. She pulls away from Jane and lies flat on her back next to her. She wipes away a few more tears and breathes deeply, trying to regain control. Jane half-sits up, supporting herself on her elbow, and looks down worriedly at Maura. She looks exhausted, she notices again, although it could be that the effect is exacerbated by the crying. Finally Maura collects herself and begins to voice is still shaky, and once or twice she has to stop talking to get her voice under control.

"I'm sorry for losing control, Jane, I don't know what's wrong with me. Well," she pauses. "I do…but I don't know why…I mean…" by this point she's looking extremely distressed. "I know…why…but…" she stops talking altogether and puts her hands over her face. Jane is completely confused by this point.

"Come on, Maura, just tell me how you feel," she says. "Are you…sad? tired? overwhelmed? lonely? Don't be lonely, Maur," she says, putting her hand on her friend's shoulder. "I'm right here."

"I know," Maura sighs, "but I guess that's part of the problem. I mean, you're right there. You're so close to me every day, every single day, and yet…" she opens bloodshot eyes and gazes up at Jane, looking heartbroken and tormented. "I want more of you." This last sentence is said in a barely audible whisper, but the intensity with which she is looking at Jane makes it very difficult to misunderstand what she's saying.

"Jane," Maura whispers. "I love you so much, and you don't even know it."

Jane doesn't give herself time to think. She is aware that it is a possibility that she will regret this later, that it's not the right thing to do, that Maura will somehow misinterpret it, but it's very hard to resist that declaration of love, hard to keep from giving in to her deepest instincts, and so she doesn't fight it: she leans in and kisses Maura hard on the mouth. It's a kiss full of fear, but also excitement, and, after a moment, when Maura starts kissing her back, it's even better than the kiss she dreamed about, because this is real.

But after a moment, Maura pulls away, pushes Jane's hand from where it came to rest on her cheek, and sits up, a spark of anger in her eye. "Don't mock me, Jane Rizzoli," she says, and her voice is low, tense and tight. "I can't take that right now. I've been dreaming about you for weeks, I can hardly sleep at night for thinking of you. Of that. Don't try and tell me there's a way I can have you, because there isn't. You could never love me," and her voice starts to wobble again. "I'm so strange, and naive, and I never know what's going on." And she pushes herself off the bed and is about to walk away when Jane's voice comes back to her. It is husky with emotion, but it does the job.

"Maura, wait," she says, standing up and coming around the bed to stop Maura from leaving. "I'm-I'm not mocking you. I don't think I could mock you, at this point. I love you so much, and it's taken me such a long time to realize it, I'm such an idiot. I've been distant and…tired because I've been trying to figure it out, what it was that was missing in my life, and it was you, Maur, it was…that, whatever, that was. All I've wanted to do for the past day was kiss you, and you can hate me for being such a blockhead, and a coward, but the fact is, I love you, Maura." She stops, afraid she's said too much, and she suddenly realizes that she has grabbed Maura's hand and has been holding onto it in an attempt to keep her from leaving. Her pulse is hammering, because this feels like her only chance: to make things right, to get happiness, to tell Maura how she really feels. She lets go of Maura's hand reluctantly. Maura's face is a rictus of confusion, her eyes wide and bloodshot and her eyebrows drawn together, and for a moment Jane's stomach sinks; she is sure she has misjudged, that Maura doesn't really want her like that, that she's disgusted Maura, driven her off.

Then Maura lets out a long, shaky breath. "You…you do?"

"Of course I do." Maura's eyes move back and forth between her eyes, and then, before Jane knows what is happening, Maura's arms are around her neck, and she is kissing her, lightly but fervently, and Jane is shocked to realize that her hands, which have been entangled nervously in each other ever since she forced herself to let go of Maura's hand, have left each other and are sliding gently up Maura's sides, reveling in the gentle curve of her waist and hips and her ribcage.

They shed their clothes deliberately, awkwardly; she lifts Maura's shirt off, and attempts the complicated fastening of her bikini, but Maura pushes away her fumbling hands and does it herself, all the while keeping her wild, expectant, pleading eyes on Jane's face. Jane is grateful that she's not wearing actual pants, but the three seconds it takes to get out of her stretchy black pants are too long. It takes Maura a lot less time to undress, and then she is standing there, impatient and glorious, trying to drag Jane's shirt off over her head. Any attempts at deliberateness, slowness, caution have been abandoned now; Jane can tell from the look in Maura's eyes that her friend—still? Or can she call Maura her lover now? Everything is wonderfully, confusingly, complicated—is as worried as she is that somehow this will be taken away, that the other will become frustrated or skittish and give up, and this realization gives her the courage to go on.

When they are finally out of their clothes, however, they pause for a minute, standing very close but not touching in the middle of Maura's bedroom. Jane doesn't want to make the first move, but Maura's eyes are stuck on her, almost as if she's holding her breath. Maura raises her hand—Jane notices that it's trembling a little bit—and touches Jane lightly, on the shoulder, as if they've never touched before, and in a way, Jane thinks, they haven't: even the groping they just completed isn't quite the point. The point is this, this space that they've created between them, and Jane knows that Maura wants to approach it just as carefully as she does.

At any rate, Maura's hand on her bare shoulder sends a small shiver down her spine. She has just gotten used to the feather-light touch on her skin—Maura has very nice hands, it is occurring to her—when the hand starts moving. Maura is still staring at her, her eyes filling slowly with tears. Her hand moves down over the muscle of Jane's shoulder, over her collarbone. It spills down between her breasts like fire, and Jane is sure that Maura can feel, beneath her fingertips, the pounding of Jane's heart. Her fingers drag on, over Jane's diaphragm—she feels a hitch in her breath—over her belly, and Jane thinks back, suddenly, to the day they left Boston, when Maura walked in on her naked in the bathroom. She wanted me then, and she wants me now, Jane realized, the thought rushing over her skin like lightning for an instant before she loses the capacity to form words in her head.

She's done letting Maura have her way, done abstaining from touch, as much as she loves this delicateness. When she puts her hands around Maura's waist, she can feel as well as hear Maura's gasp. She backs Maura up until her legs hit Maura's bed, then sits down and pulls Maura onto her lap so that the smaller woman is straddling her.

"Is this okay with you?" she asks quietly. Maura's eyes are still a little red from crying, but they are also determined and passionate. When she speaks, it's in a low, confident purr.

"It's so much more than okay, Jane." And then she kisses Jane, and pushes her back onto the bed, leaning over her on all fours, and Jane's hands move from her shoulders to her breasts, which are surprisingly heavy in her hands, to her hipbones, and then she's reaching in between Maura's legs and feeling the softness there, and Maura moans against her lips and moves her hips against Jane's hand. It takes a moment—neither of them have ever, to Jane's knowledge, done…this before—but they establish a rhythm, aided by their newfound passion for each other and their desperation to make this work, and soon Maura is trembling and pulsing against her hand, and Maura's fingers are digging into her back, and Maura's breathing is hoarse in her ear. The part of Jane's brain that is not busy processing completely new information hears Maura whisper, less to her than to the air, "thank you, thank you, thank you."

They hang there in the moment, still for a second, and then they move: they move back onto the bed, so that Jane can lie down, and Maura lies next to her, legs entangled with hers, and then they move again, so that Maura is between Jane's legs, and then they move again, and again. They are enraptured with each other, but after a few hours of joyful exploration they fall asleep, the lack of sleep and the tension of the last few days having exhausted them.

When Jane wakes up, it is dark. She looks beside her first, making sure that Maura is still there, and feels a pang of pure happiness when she sees Maura's tangled blonde hair on the pillow beside her, feels Maura's arm thrown across her belly. Then she glances at the clock, squinting a little to make out the numbers: it is 9:13. The night is young, and Jane Rizzoli is, she realizes, absolutely starving.

She makes pancakes, standing in front of the stove in only her underwear and what she's pretty sure is Maura's t-shirt, and she's flipping the third one when she hears a noise behind her. It's Maura, completely naked in the light of the moon from the dining room window.

"You're wearing my shirt," she accuses Jane.

"If only for the pleasure of seeing you wearing nothing at all," Jane beams back at her. "You can wear mine if you want."

Maura comes closer, smiling a little. "No, I think…I'll just stick close to you." And she does, despite some closer scares with errant pancakes, standing first behind Jane, her arms encircling Jane's waist, then in between Jane's arms, trying awkwardly to flip a pancake. They eat in bed, but end up falling asleep again.

When Jane wakes up the next morning, Maura is gone. She leaves Maura's room and wander the house looking for her until she spots her familiar shape on the porch. Maura's showered, and put her hair up in a braid, and she's wearing what Jane recognizes as her causal clothes. She's made coffee, Jane realizes as she gets closer, just as she has every other day of this vacation, and now she's standing on the porch, leaning against the railing, looking out over the ocean.

Jane comes up behind her, stands beside her at the rail. Maura looks over at her and smiles but doesn't say anything. Jane is silent too, for a while, but then she has to ask: "how long have you known?"

"How long have I know what?" Maura asks, absently.

"That you…loved me," Jane says, still a little worried that Maura will have changed her mind, that it was all a dream, that Maura will turn to her with a look of bemusement or ridicule on her face. Instead, Maura looks solemn as she thinks back through lonely nights and sad realizations.

"It was a couple of months ago," she confesses finally. "It had been coming on for a while, I guess, but there was one day where you were just so…perfectly chivalrous, and I had been getting over that ridiculous guy who was secretly a NASCAR racer, and I just looked at you at one point and you were trying to hide that bag of fudge clusters you'd bought to cheer me up? And I thought, this woman would do anything for me, and then I started having dreams…" here Maura actually looks embarrassed. "at first they weren't…sexual, really, but then…"

"I've been dreaming about you for weeks, Maura," Jane says finally. "And none of it's been sexual until two nights ago, but that was what made me realize. First that you were…that you are the most important thing to me, and then that I loved you for that, for getting through to me."

A/N: Thanks for sticking with me through my first real attempt at fanfiction! I know there are some major flaws with it, but I hope to improve in future stories. :)


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